


Trespassing

by RefrainGirl



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Anathema Device Ships Aziraphale/Crowley, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Have Their Picnic (Good Omens), Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Newt does too, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Romantic Fluff, Well almost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23309551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RefrainGirl/pseuds/RefrainGirl
Summary: Crowley rolled his eyes skyward, sighing as if he were doing him the biggest of favors. “Right, ‘course. I forgot that it isn’t obvious. The reason we’re doing this is...” He paused for a moment, grinning mischievously. “Why not?”Deep, cerulean eyes narrowed in suspicion at the vague explanation. “Why not what?” he asked slowly.“No, that is the reason. It’s the literal reason why we’re trespassing. Why not?”A month has passed since the Armageddon that wasn't, and Crowley finally feels secure enough with the normalcy of their routine to admit to Aziraphale all of the emotions that are trapped within his heart. He invites the angel over to the Tadfield Airbase in the hope of showing him exactly how he feels, but nothing is going to be gained if he can't get him to set foot inside. And even then, who knows what might happen...
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 59





	Trespassing

**Author's Note:**

> This was a story that almost made it into my writing list for the Ineffable Valentines 2020 collection, but I decided against using it in the end. Still, it had been completely written up and I thought it'd be a shame to just toss it, so I decided to save it, touch it up a little and post it as a separate story all on its own. This is my first confession fic for Aziraphale and Crowley, so I hope y'all enjoy it!

An angel and a demon were standing near the Tadfield Airbase, in front of a large, fallen tree that had pinned part of an old chain link fence to the ground. The gap left behind was big enough that a person could clamber over it without much trouble if they desired to do so. One of them very much desired to do such a thing, meanwhile the other was considering himself an intruder who really should ask permission before heading inside, and who was also wondering, as a side thought, why he was even bothering to listen to his counterpart when it came to situations like this.

For those who knew them personally, it wasn’t hard to tell which was which.

Crowley had asked Anathema and Newt about the tree’s location specifically for the occasion, and thankfully nobody had come along to repair anything yet. The humans running this base were really lying down on the job in terms of security. It had been a long and peaceful month since Armageddidn’t, for Someone’s sake. They should’ve at least come out to examine the fenceline by now.

But the fact that they hadn’t filled Crowley with glee regardless. The path was perfectly accessible, and only slightly overgrown. This was going to be easier than he thought.

As long as he could convince the angel to take a few more steps forward, that is.

“Do we actually have a reason for doing this, Crowley?”

“Sure there’s a reason.”

“And that reason is…?”

Rather than explaining further, Crowley simply circled his wrist in a hurried gesture of ‘get a move on, angel’. But in all honesty, he didn’t expect Aziraphale to instantly comply with that demand. If there was one thing the two of them had in common, it was that they had a tendency towards inconveniencing each other with their stubbornness. And right now Aziraphale was being resolutely still, his eyebrows furrowing as he considered the possibility of Crowley leading him into yet another scenario for which he wasn’t prepared.

He wasn’t wrong, either, but saying anything at all on the subject would ruin the surprise, and Crowley wasn’t sure if he could find the right words anyway. Stringing them together into a coherent sentence was a lot harder than it seemed, and whenever he’d tried in the past it had always come out as garbled nonsense - either that or something completely unrelated to what he’d been meaning to say. It would be so much easier for Crowley if the angel could just carry on without plaguing him with constant questions.

That was highly unlikely, however, given the intensity of his stare. Aziraphale frowned slightly as his eyes traveled along the grassy, leaf-strewn path they were supposed to be taking. A hint of doubt sunk into his tone as he folded his arms across his chest. “I think you should elaborate a bit more than that,” he murmured, gaze darting nervously about the surrounding area.

Crowley was unsure why he felt the need to be so cautious. A multitude of forest creatures resided in this area, birds and squirrels and the like. Those were the only living things in the nearby vicinity that could possibly hear what they said, and it wasn’t like woodland animals had the ability to gasp in shock and tattle to the nearest human.

Still, he was genuinely entertained by this repartee of theirs, even though he was also frustrated with the wall of resistance Aziraphale was putting up. “You need an answer that bad, eh?”

“Yes, I truly do.”

Crowley rolled his eyes skyward, sighing as if he were doing him the biggest of favors. “Right, ‘course. I forgot that it isn’t obvious. The reason we’re doing this is...” He paused for a moment, grinning mischievously. “Why not?”

Deep, cerulean eyes narrowed in suspicion at the vague explanation. “Why not what?” he asked slowly.

“No, that _is_ the reason. It’s the literal reason why we’re trespassing. Why not?”

That was as good a reason as any, in Crowley’s mind. Of course there were probably a million answers to that question, and all of them were about as entertaining as listening to Beelzebub sing Christmas carols in July. That had happened once before, after she had lost a bet against Gabriel and, Satan preserve him, it had been horrible. Not that he would ever tell her to her face, but her singing voice was like listening to the grating sound of a cheese grater while it scraped dully along his forehead, coupled with the sound of a dying walrus. And every denizen of Hell had been forced to sit and listen because if Lord Beelzebub had to sing, then the demons had to be present to compliment on her efforts. Insubordination, basically any reaction other than clapping or cheering, had been punishable by death.

Fun times, those. Actually no, not really.

Luckily for him, the angel wasn’t a demon. He grinned wider as Aziraphale processed the information. It took a few moments of contemplation, but as soon as the angel came to a certain realization his face went adorably slack. “You… wait, this counts as trespassing!?”

“N’yeah, kinda.” He shrugged, to show how inconsequential that was. “No big deal, though. The less people are around, the smoother it goes. We’ll be fine.”

“No big - oh, good Lord! Crowley, I swear - ”

A mighty lengthy lecture was brewing, and Crowley was eager to dissuade such wording from escaping the angel’s lips. “Aw c’mon, hear me out! Does something like that really apply to two supernatural beings like us?” he argued, spreading his arms wide. “We don’t have to be held back by human restrictions if we don’t want! We can literally go wherever! I went inside a telephone line recently! Does that mean I trespassed on the local phone company’s territory? I don’t think so.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth, about to retort with something sharp and witty no doubt, but his expression became moderately confused before he could say anything else. “You… went inside a phone line? Whatever for?”

Crowley shrugged a shoulder. “I was trying to get away from Hastur, so I tricked him into following me down the line. Got the bastard trapped in my ansaphone for a while. It was a last minute plan but it turned out well in the end, and it’s actually a lot of fun. Almost like a water slide, ‘cept you don’t get wet. You should try it sometime.”

The mere mention of a rideable slide of water had gotten Aziraphale’s curiosity going, Crowley could tell, but thankfully he decided against turning the conversation down a different track. He didn’t want to have to spend hours depicting the concept of water slides to a being that would likely not partake in such activities in the first place.

“I’d rather not,” Aziraphale muttered, turning to give the demon a stern look instead. “I would also rather not trespass! Can’t we take the front gate, like last time?”

“What, you lookin’ forward to snapping another American into the ether? They aren’t gonna let us walk in there. And for the record,” Crowley continued, waving a hand brusquely in the direction of the airbase checkpoint, “what we did then counts as trespassing too. I didn’t get express permission to head inside, did you?”

“All right, you’ve made your point. Let us go before I change my mind,” the angel grumbled, stopping only to wag a finger at him. “But just so _you_ know, that was an entirely different situation. We had important reasons for going in there! We weren’t just trespassing for the sake of trespassing!”

Crowley made a face at him. “Okay, fine. You’re right, and I’m wrong, again,” he sighed, relenting just a bit. Arguing with Aziraphale usually led to him claiming the moral high ground, and he didn’t need to hear that spiel right now. There were more pressing things to think about. “Anyway, what makes you so sure we’re doing this for nothing? When have I ever gone to such lengths for nothing at all? Really, you should have more faith in me, angel.”

They had just climbed over and around the trunk of the tree when Aziraphale paused to give him a wary frown. “I thought that you were acting a bit off,” he said, and Crowley immediately broke into a cold sweat. “Is there another reason for visiting the airbase that you haven’t told me yet?”

“No!” he shouted, too quickly and far too loudly for it to sound anything other than suspect. Struggling to get a hold of himself, Crowley turned his head to the side and grimaced. “Hrk. Um, no.”

Aziraphale stared harder at him. “No?”

“Yeah, no,” he tried again, slipping his hands in his pockets and attempting to sound smooth. Was it working? He had no fucking idea. Please, Someone, let it be working for once. “No other reasons, no secrets or anything. Just no.”

“Secrets, you say?”

The angel’s lips were twitching, like he was trying so very hard not to smirk. The bastard. Crowley sneered irritably before reaching for his shoulders to turn him back around towards the base. “’M not saying it again, so just get going!”

* * *

Tadfield’s airbase wasn’t a high traffic area on the best of days. It remained abandoned for the most part, especially after the events of Armageddidn’t had harmlessly passed them by. Useless, old equipment was all that was left behind, most of it unsalvageable thanks to Newt’s efforts to ‘fix’ what was malfunctioning. The handful of soldiers that occupied this place had no clue why they were still needed here, and most of them spent their days reading or playing cards to pass the time. Waiting for new orders that might never arrive.

But even though that was the case, they were still in the army and thus armed to the nines. Guns like theirs could easily poke more than a few holes in anyone, and these were the kind of humans that took trespassing rather seriously. Which was why Crowley and Aziraphale were sneaking along the outer edges of the airfield, hopefully under the radar, but it was hard to know for sure.

“This certainly is entertaining,” Aziraphale sighed, bumping abruptly into Crowley’s back as he stopped to observe another human. She was doing the rounds with her gun in hand, walking nearer to their position with each step. “I always wanted to skulk about like a criminal. Crowley, my dear, how did you know?”

He rolled his eyes. “Shut it, she’ll hear you! Things are gonna get better, promise. But you’ve gotta stop talking so loud.” Glancing over his shoulder, he caught the annoyed expression his angel was wearing and gave him a heavily put-upon sigh of his own. “C’mon, please?”

“Oh, well, since you said please I suppose I could oblige,” he said, putting on a sickly sweet smile that managed to appear quite ominous.

Crowley wisely decided against answering.

The woman was only a few feet away when one of her comrades suddenly called to her, waving her over with a strangely glassy look in their eyes. She waved back, and went running over to see what they needed, but Aziraphale knew that the human didn’t actually need anything. That same dead-eyed look had been on Sister Mary Loquacious’ face when they had gone to ask her about the whereabouts of the Antichrist, and there was only one being here who had the power to do that.

He glanced over at the demon, tilting his eyebrow up into an elegant curve. ”Crowley, was that really necessary?”

“Abso-bloody-lutely. Yeah, it was. You didn’t think I was gonna listen to you complain the whole time, right?” he grumbled, straightening up from his crouch. “I didn’t wanna have to use a miracle this soon after resolving everything, but at least this way you don’t have to ‘skulk about’ and pester me with the morality of it all, or lack thereof.”

The angel smiled warmly at him, arms folded neatly behind his back, and Crowley shook his head sneeringly at him. “You’re welcome,” he hissed, waving a dramatic arm forwards. “Now, can we get on, or what?”

There was the attitude that Aziraphale had expected to see. He let out a sigh, quietly pleased with the sentiment hiding underneath all the bluster. “That’s kind of you, dearest. Thank you,” he said.

But Crowley didn’t seem to register his thanks. He almost stumbled over his own feet, cursing quietly under his breath and readjusting his glasses from where they had slipped down his nose. The hands inside his pockets clenched tighter, and was that a blush spreading across his cheeks?

“Are you alright? Your face is awfully red.”

“Fine. ‘M fine,” he mumbled, turning away as Aziraphale stepped around him to try and examine his expression better. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Well, if you say so, dearest.”

The demon actually did trip this time, and only just managed to catch himself before he ate a mouthful of pavement. Shaking his head, he stared at the space between him and Aziraphale. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to meet his eyes. “D-do you have to say it like that?” he asked shakily. It sounded like he couldn’t catch his breath. They didn’t need air anyway, but the angel was pretty sure that this reaction meant something more than simple oxygen deprivation. “Why’re you saying it like that? You never used to.”

“Er… what am I saying?”

He watched as Crowley bit at his lip, hard. “It’s just… n… nothing…”

This was starting to make Aziraphale worry. He gently placed a hand on Crowley’s shoulder. “Dearest…”

Crowley flinched at the contact. “There! You just did it again,” he gasped, and the angel could feel his muscles go taut beneath his palm. “Why are you calling me that?”

Aziraphale opened his mouth, and for once he had no answer. The term had simply come to him unbidden. He had always called people ‘dear’ or ‘my dear’ out of politeness. That was just what one did when one wished to be respectful towards another person. He had always said it for as long as he could remember.

But never had he called anyone ‘dearest’. That was more than being polite, something that you reserved for someone who was considered to be more than a friend. Couples all over referred to their partners as ‘dearest’, he had heard it spoken so many countless times over the years. It was an endearment, a word of affection and love that carried the weight of unspoken sentiments within every syllable.

And he had just called Crowley his ‘dearest’. Thrice, without a second thought. It had come so naturally.

“I… I am sorry about that,” he found himself saying, although he wasn’t sorry. Not even a little. “I must have misspoke. I hope you can forgive me.”

Crowley stiffened, turning his face up towards the sky. Every part of him was vibrating with something intense, an emotion. Was it excitement? No, that didn’t sound right. Whatever he was feeling, it wasn’t anything remotely positive. “You misspoke, huh?”

That harsh, broken tone broadsided Aziraphale in the worst way. Why did he seem crushed to hear that? Why was there so much pain and agony hidden inside those three harmless words? If they had been talking about anything else he could have taken it for what it was, but…

Didn’t Crowley understand that he was only doing this to _protect_ -

What. Protect him from what? From Gabriel? From Heaven’s wrath? They didn’t care about him anymore. Hell didn’t care about Crowley anymore, either. It was their side, now and forever. Nobody else factored into it, not anymore.

Was that why he was being so open now, so free with his smiles and his laughter and…

“Well, if that’s true, then we should just turn back now,” Crowley was saying in a clipped voice. “You wouldn’t be interested in what I was gonna show you.”

Aziraphale shook himself out of his thoughts, gazing up at the terribly guarded expression on his face. No, that was a relic of the past. He wanted it gone, it had been gone! And now look what he’d done! His careless words had put it back there again!

“Crowley…”

“You don’t have to do anything, angel.” He smiled down at him, but it was a weary one. The same smile that he had worn all his life, the smile of a demon who realized that what he wanted was always going to be just out of reach. The mask of acceptance, of being content with what was rather than hoping for what couldn’t be. “If what we have now is good enough for you, then I’ll gladly take it. As long as I get to see you, ‘s fine.”

This was all wrong. Aziraphale wanted the other smile back. He wanted to see Crowley smile with all of his heart, and he wanted to feel it like he had been for the past month. Warmth, endless, undying warmth surrounding him, bathing him in security and comfort and pure, shimmering bliss.

That’s it. He wanted all of Crowley’s love.

“It’s not,” he mumbled.

The demon frowned at him. “Huh?”

Aziraphale stared down at their feet. He wasn’t sure if he could handle looking at such a despondent face. “What we have. It’s not good enough. It’s not fine.”

There was a long minute of hesitation. “It… It’s not?”

“No.”

“Then…” Crowley let out a small, hysterical laugh. “What are you saying, angel? You… you aren’t actually thinking about…”

He had to say something, before things between them became irreparable. “Crowley, I…”

There were hands on his shoulders, gripping hard, but he didn’t dare to look up. He didn’t want to see the agonizing picture of Crowley’s face cracking under the weight of his assumptions. “Don’t. Please, _please_ don’t.”

He was pleading now, and Aziraphale felt like such a coward, not for the first time.

_Just say it, tell him how you feel. Say the right thing!_

“I have to tell you.”

“No, you don’t. It’s fine, really.”

“I do.”

Crowley was trembling now, his fingers digging in harder until it felt like they might form bruises. “Aziraphale, I don’t… I _can’t_ …”

_Now! Open your mouth and speak, or Heaven help you, you will regret it for the rest of eternity!_

Aziraphale shook his head, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. “Just listen!” he urged, pushing on through the persistence of Crowley’s desperate exclamations. “Listen to me when I say I _love_ you!”

Silence. A slight breath of wind and more silence. He could hear the exact moment when Crowley stopped breathing. It was like all of creation had stopped, the world slowing to a halt just for them. “W… what…?” he croaked.

Oh good, he had been listening after all. “Finally,” the angel sighed, smiling as thousands of years’ worth of bottled up romantic tension seeped out of him, right through the soles of his shoes. “I’ve been in love with you for quite a while. I wanted to tell you sooner, but I keep getting hooked up on my old habits.”

“Huh.” If he had been expecting a more eloquent reply from Crowley, it was probably going to come around later. Much, much later. Startled golden eyes peered down into his as the demon lifted his shades up. “So…?” he asked, gradually trailing off to leave the rest of his hesitant question unspoken.

Aziraphale didn’t begrudge Crowley the trepidation he felt, the uncertainty that followed his every action, his every word. Centuries had come and gone, and all he had done was insist that ‘his side’ would not tolerate anything between them. ‘His side’ would disapprove. ‘His side’ might catch wind, and what would happen then? So many instances sprang to mind of Crowley offering himself up on a sliver platter, and what had he done with it? Nothing, that’s what. He had simply washed his hands of the whole ordeal, and continued to wash his hands of it every time it was brought up. It wasn’t safe, he wouldn’t risk it. Crowley was too precious to lose, and even if it meant blatantly lying to his face about what he felt, he would do it without blinking. Because he loved his darling demon too much to put what they had into the hands of powers that could end them both. Aziraphale had been doing what he could to keep his emotions suppressed, to smother them, cover them up with countless layers of Heaven and righteousness and that ‘I’m an angel, and you’re a demon’ rubbish. He had committed himself to that ruse for so long that it had nearly ruined everything!

Crowley had been an angel, once. Why was this grotesque separation necessary to begin with!? Why had it _ever_ been necessary!?

… Well, bugger that. It wasn’t necessary any longer.

“Calling you ‘dearest’ wasn’t a mistake,” he said, summoning up the remainder of his courage to stare into the demon’s face. “It is the only thing I can call you. I love you too much to call you anything other than what you are… dearest.”

Crowley stared at him for a long time, taking in every detail, and after a while the barest traces of a smile slipped onto his face. “That so?”

“It is, although I would understand if you didn’t believe me.”

“Eh, never said that. But since you offered… how ‘bout you prove it anyway?” he chuckled, tugging Aziraphale into the bushes as he shrieked in surprise.

“Crowley - Ah! Oh, _Crowley_ …”

* * *

Anathema and Newt had been sitting in the field behind the airbase, keeping a close watch over the cluster of assorted heart-shaped balloons and the tiramisu cake that had been brought especially for Aziraphale’s pleasure, for hours. Every once in a while, the loud wail of what might have passed for a coyote reached their ears, although Anathema had yet to hear such a cry anywhere else in Tadfield on any other occasion. It was disconcerting, to say the least, and even if they hadn’t started hearing odd noises it was getting quite late as well. She and Newt would have to leave soon, before it got too dark and whatever creature lurking around the airbase decided that it would be fun to hunt down a young American witch and her English boyfriend.

Honestly, what was keeping those two?

Anathema glanced at her phone again, wrinkling her nose as she did so. “Didn’t Crowley say they’d be here two hours ago?” she asked.

“I think so,” Newt replied, shrugging. “Maybe the guards caught them after all.”

“They’re a demon and an angel. I’m sure they can handle a few well-armed humans.”

“It would be odd if they got caught while we didn’t,” he mused. “I mean, we didn’t do anything special. We just walked in the same way we did last time and kept going until we found a spot that we figured the army wouldn’t object to.”

Anathema sighed, staring out over the endless grasses of the field. The weird coyote cried out again, and this time she had the distinct, spine-tingling feeling that it was more of a sexual sound than one of ravenous hunger. Or maybe it was _that_ kind of hunger.

Aaaand that was definitely a giggle. Coyotes don’t giggle.

She pouted her lips. “I’ll tell you what. If they don’t show in the next ten minutes, you and I can split the cake between us and go home. Are you in?”

Well, it wasn’t like anything else exciting was going on. Newt nodded. “Sure, why not?”

**Author's Note:**

> Come and say hi on Tumblr!
> 
> You can find me at my main blog [@refraingirl](https://refraingirl.tumblr.com/) or at my writing blog [@refraingirl-the-writer](https://refraingirl-the-writer.tumblr.com/)!


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